Venetian Uses Slide Dealing in First U.S. World Poker Tour Event
The $5,000 WPT Venetian Las Vegas Fall Championship is testing the room’s new low-to-the-felt dealing method on a $2 million guaranteed event.
- The WPT Venetian Las Vegas Fall Championship is the first U.S.-based World Poker Tour event to use slide dealing.
- Dealers slide hole cards across the felt rather than pitch them through the air to reduce opportunities to glimpse exposed cards.
- The Venetian adopted the method across its poker room last month after South Point introduced it earlier in Las Vegas.
- Cherish Andrews led after a 103-entry Day 1a, with 32 players advancing to Day 2.
The $5,000 WPT Venetian Las Vegas Fall Championship is the first World Poker Tour event held in the United States to use slide dealing, bringing the Venetian’s new anti-cheating procedure onto a major tournament stage. The championship runs through Nov. 10 with a $2 million guaranteed prize pool, and its final table will be livestreamed on PokerGO from the Venetian Poker Room’s new streaming room.
PokerNews first reported the tournament milestone. Instead of pitching hole cards through the air, dealers slide them across the felt, keeping the cards low and making their undersides harder for opponents or concealed cameras to see. The Venetian had required dealers to abandon traditional pitching and use the new approach last month.
As we reported in October, the Venetian had already adopted slide dealing throughout its Las Vegas poker room. The property, which has 50 tables, replaced traditional felts with smoother speed felts and deals cards directly from a shoe. It became the first major casino on the Las Vegas Strip to make the switch, while South Point had become the first Las Vegas poker room to begin slide dealing earlier this year.
The security case for the change centers on the brief exposure possible when cards travel through the air. Casino.org reported that cards pitched at table height can be glimpsed by hidden cameras, whereas keeping them flush or close to the felt sharply limits that risk. Tommy LaRosa said the method reduces the possibility of exposed cards during the deal and improves player security.
The approach has already appeared at a recent WPT event in Sydney, Australia, where dealing was reported to have gone smoothly without player complaints. But it still has critics in Las Vegas, where some players and poker officials have raised concerns over dealer retraining costs and a possible reduction in hands per hour while staff learn the technique. Others, including Daniel Negreanu, have backed the security benefit.
After Day 1a, Cherish Andrews led the 103-player field and 32 players had bagged for Day 2. Day 1b is scheduled for 11:15 a.m. local time Friday, followed by the final opening flight Saturday.
